IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The impacts of Hurricane Florence ain't over yet, with new evacuations underway; As predicted, Florence flooding spills toxic coal ash waste in North Carolina; National TV media failed to connect the dots between Florence's impacts and climate change; PLUS: Endangered species and more hang in the balance as Republicans rush to get their nominee onto the U.S. Supreme Court... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Kemp Burdette of Cape Fear River Watch, reached by phone Sunday, said he didn’t know when the group will get results back. “Keep in mind, Duke sent their samples to their in-house lab,” said Burdette, the Cape Fear Riverkeeper. “Until you have a third-party analysis, any analysis should be taken with a grain of salt.”

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration announced the rule reversal online, citing an updated federal analysis that found the high costs of implementation outweighed the benefits...After the 2015 rule was finalized, giving oil-carrying trains until at least 2021 to install the new brake technology, Congress called for an updated analysis on its costs and benefits. Trump officials did that study and concluded in late 2017 that the brake requirements “are not economically justified.”

“Despite the additional testing and modeling, we still believe that there is insufficient data demonstrating that ECP braking systems provide a demonstrable increase in safety over other more widely used braking systems,” the American Petroleum Institute told the PHMSA after it proposed Monday’s action in December.

"This term is going to be more of a blockbuster, clearly, than last term in terms of environmental and energy law," University of Colorado law professor Sharon Jacobs said. In addition to the ESA case, the court will hear disputes over property rights, uranium mining and public lands management. The term will also feature nonenvironmental litigation over executive branch power that could have spillover effects across many agencies.

The order comes after the same court in August ruled that the Trump administration unlawfully delayed the rule written in the final days of the Obama administration...“[T]here is no textual basis for EPA’s current interpretation” of the law. Usually the court would allow 52 days for the EPA to consider appealing the order and plan out how to implement the rule, which would have put it on Oct. 8. But the groups supporting the regulation argued that it can’t wait.

Cleveland, OH becomes newest major city to commit to 100% renewable electricity:

The plan stands out in a state that in recent years has been more inclined to roll back clean energy rules than strengthen them, and in a territory served by FirstEnergy, which has been a leading burner of fossil fuels. City officials announced the 100 percent renewable power target Thursday as they released an update to Cleveland's climate action plan, which aims to reduce greenhouses gases to 80 percent below the 2010 level by 2050.

To stabilize global temperature, net carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to zero. The window of time is rapidly closing to reduce emissions and limit warming to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the goal set in the Paris climate accord. The further we push the climate system beyond historical conditions, the greater the risks of potentially unforeseen and even catastrophic changes to the climate - so every reduction in emissions helps.

Clean-energy enthusiasts frequently claim that we can go bigger, that it's possible for the whole world to run on renewables - we merely lack the "political will." So, is it true? Do we know how get to an all-renewables system? Not yet. Not really.